Skies tomatoes butterflies

Sure, a few days ago, I said...the skies almost never have brilliant colors when we have dense fog.

And then...
we have this:

The sky was brilliant and the fog was incredible.

Below is a photo of our main road. In one township it has blacktop and in our township it is gravel. Imagine having this view on your morning commute?
That is the only thing I miss about working early morning shifts, was the drive through the valleys and ridges on gorgeous mornings like this.

Though the valley fog was sometimes pretty intense.

My sidekick, Charlie went with and we enjoyed staying until just before the sun broke through the clouds and then we headed back home.

This was one of those mornings I wished I'd planned ahead to go to the bluff at KVR and watch the sun come up and the valley fog glow below.

The rest of the day was rather boring. Chores and indoor chores.

However, we had BLT's last night and I was rather suprised by the really ugly purple tomatoes that I grew on a whim.

They were huge next to the Beefsteak Tomatoes. Rich thought the purple tomato was spoiled because it looked almost blackish.

The big purplish tomato was as large as my hand! It made for a perfect sandwich tomato.

As I write this and have my coffee this morning, I am watching another incredible sky show.

The fog is creeping up from the valley into our hollow.

The zinnias and the fading bee balm are still attracting insects like crazy. Here are two I saw yesterday in the flowers.

and...

I am new at trying to ID butterflies so if I am wrong let me know!

The Laugh is on Me~

Over the last year, the Kickapoo Valley Reserve has changed management and has had other changes. Most of them I don't pay attention to as they were changes for campsites and the completion of a new trail that I'd done this summer.

I was using an old map to draw colored lines on the trails I finished. Last year in September, I hiked the south end of the Billings Creek Trail until I ran into a huge deadfall where the trail disappeared. I knew I was close to the Billings Creek crossing but turned around.

My plan was to approach the trail from the north and find the stream crossing from the large grassy area I'd seen on the Google Earth Maps.

Simple, right? Then I could see where the other end of the trail close to where I stopped and re hike the south end to nail the segments needed for the Trail Challenge.

Below is a map of my walk from the Mapmyhike app.

However. The trail through the field was unmarked. So I had to wander up and down the Hay Valley Segment that ends at Cass Valley Road to find some sort of indication of a trail.

There was bent grass that looked like a tractor had driven through the area and it looked like a trail that should have been mowed but wasn't. I was sort of pissed that the only indication of the trail was a tiny sign that barely stuck up through the weeds that said, "No Motorized Vehicles". Normally there is a small sign like this:

Charlie was a trooper, he really tried. Except when he got stuck in the tall grasses and started to cough.

Three inch legs are not that great for huffing through tall grasses. My legs had a tough time too, especially with Charlie in my arms.

But the flowers were beautiful. Except when they weren't because it got hot as we went into the valley. Hot and no air movement. Lots of bees and butterflies. 
I was cursing more than I was enjoying. If I wanted to bushwhack, I'd have hiked my neighbor's abandoned land.

I could see where Billings Creek was supposed to be and we finally followed a deer trail to the bank.

After mucking around a bit and stopping for a water break.  I cussed out loud and made a mental note to ask the Reserve Management -- Why do you put this trail on your Trail Challenge if you do NOT maintain it well?

I turned around and with Charlie in my arms headed back up the valley, stomping and tromping my way through the tall grasses.

I must admit though. The yellow cone flower, golden rod, and some kind of purple butterfly flowers, were quite beautiful. This would be a place to find all sorts of cool insects.

I made it back to the 'Ru and dumped my backpack on the ground. Charlie and I sat in the back end of the 'Ru and shared an apple and he got some doggy treats.

The scenery was in fact quite beautiful and I took these two shots from where I parked with the Infrared pocket camera.

If nothing else, I'd hiked half of the Hay Valley Trail that ran along the road and finished [mostly] the north end of the Billings Creek Trail.

When I got home, I brought up the new updated Trail Challenge Sheet and the on line trail map out of curiosity.

Billings Creek Trail was no longer on their map.
Huh?

Billings Creek Trail was no longer on the Trail Challenge!

Wait. What?

I had been going off from last year's print out and map.

It dawned on me. That trail was a foot trail only. It is a difficult trail and there is no way to get chainsaws in there to maintain the trail. The foot traffic is light. I can't think of anyone else I know that has done this trail on foot.

In the 1990's we rode it on mules and horses and the riders did all the trail clearing. Now?

Well the last laugh was on me.

However.
The footpath still exists and I plan on using it to get to the bluffs above the Kickapoo and enjoy the views that most others won't get to see.

That will teach me for not checking the new updated maps!

But I look at it this way. I still know where most of all the old trails are, so I can explore in areas where there are no other people to contend with.

Because Billings Creek IS worth visiting:

2014 photo

Charlie after our hike. He decided to lay on Rich's chair and sleep.

Faking it

With new advances in technology, it is getting harder and harder to tell a plain old photo compared one that was taken 'out in the real' world.
I prefer hiking to the ridge and enjoying what Mother Nature provides in the morning and not what I think it should be like.

Some new photo editing programs offer something called Skyswap. It is all over the place. You can find it on PicsArt and BeFunky to name a couple of on line photo editing apps.

ON1 offers it also. No, I am not paid to mention them. I just use the program because it is easy and fast.

I generally do NOT use it.
Here is a sample of the real shot and then the SkySwap added in.

Original photo.

SkySwapped.

Is it cheating? Oh yes, I think if I claimed the above shot as the original photo I couldn't live with myself. However I would love to see a sky like that with a foggy atmosphere. It is pretty rare to get so much color in our area with so much dense fog. 

But.
There is the Butt.

It makes my eyebrows go up when I see the comparison. It makes it prettier with more color.

But.

It is still cheating.

One more cheat.

Original.

Skyswapped.

Next I'll address the fun stuff. I wrote a series of books for my grandkids at one time regarding my dog Morris and his toys that were 'alive'. I always was looking for a way to make the photos in the books to look more like illustrations.

In order to do that, I had to delve into the wild world of radical edits. At the time I settled on making the photos a bit oversimplified and a bit more colorful. Here is one of Morris's toys having a discussion with one of our Dexter cows. 
The original photo had 3 lines of hot wires in it that I had to clone out. That was a very hard job to do.

In this era of editing fun, I depended quite a bit on the Topaz software. Their plugin with Simplify was what I used a lot for trying to make photos look more like colorful drawings.

That was so much fun!

So I've been playing with an idea of making a story with my little characters. For fun I decided to just pick something small and go for it.

For those who don't work with programs and edits, the below is a sample of how much more advanced masking and editing have become over the years.

I recall trying to extract one thing out of an image years ago. The process was lengthy and painstaking. More often than not it took me so much time and effort, that I'd have to save the work and then go back to it.

Sometimes it would even freeze up my computer.

Newer programs allow a person to indicate in red what they want to get rid of and use green to keep.

It works best with high contrast images.

I isolated the little figure and now it was part of the image below it. But it doesn't look too 'real' even if the world around the figure is 'unreal'.

I added some effects and changed the colors up a bit.

This was a fun exercise. 

See what happens when I am stuck inside? 

No worries. 

I did my chores first and froze about 3 lbs of green beans, washed windows, dealt with Charlie hair, made hubby lunch, and then caught the goat who got out of his pen and pulled some geraniums out of planters...

All in a rainy, moody, dreary, cloudy day.

I can't wait for the nicer weather we are supposed to have this week!

We have plenty of mud to go around and the yard is growing like crazy again. We could do with a week without rain.

Have a great Monday.

 

Learning new tricks

This time with the camera. Well, I have used the Sequence shooting before, but never thought to do this.

And I really wonder why. It is such a delightful way to present a photo. It involves a bit of knowledge of layers and editing, with modern programs it is much easier to do than ages ago.

I did this handheld because I happened to be walking outside with camera in hand while peering at the flowers. I wanted to see if any other butterflies showed up other than the Swallow Tail.

The result was the same butterfly in flight in two stages.

That was fun to try so I tried it a few more times. Several times I noticed a lot of activity around the Zinnias so I grabbed the camera and kept trying to catch something amazing.

Below is an example of how the shots look as I start to put them together. These were shot at 1/2000 of a second in rapid fire. The butterfly moved quickly but overlapped itself in subsequent shots. 

I thought it would be a good learning experience to try and merge 4 shots of the same butterfly.

It was work but in doing so, I understand a bit better as to how the Swallow Tails move.

A Monarch showed up later in the day by the Zinnias and I had to wait for it to settle down. I took a series of it and was disappointed in that it just fluttered and hovered over the same flower while a Swallow Tail did a Photobomb!

This one of the Clearwing Hummingbird Moth was probably the most frustrating of all. These little fellows move like lightening. Getting them in focus as they move? Almost impossible. But I tried.

My last attempt at a series was a humming bird. They are one of the most challenging birds to 'catch'.

This female did a lot of hovering and each shot had a different wing position, however they would have been piled right on top of each other. So I found two shots that I could merge like this:

There was another shot I wanted to include that had her with her wings folded forward. 

Photography is such an amazing way to observe these beautiful creatures.

I think I learn so much from observing and photographing them. 

I do the same thing with insects, flowers, trees, and fungi. If it makes me curious, I have to study it through the camera.

That said, birds are beginning to migrate. The Orioles have been gone for a few weeks, the sound of Robins has diminished, the Bluebirds headed out in mid July, the red wing blackbirds are few and far between...and the Wrens are still here, but quieter.
I will miss the Wrens more than any other bird. 

Soon enough the trees will start to show that they are tired and ready for their rest. 

Wow what a day!

 Here is my Foodie Photo / Foto.

I never 'present a dish' but I am not knocking those who do because...well, I AM jealous because you folks that cook and make beautiful dishes are awesome. 

I decided to decorate Fred's morning meal. Fred is a pony mule who is 37 years old. He is retired and now gets special grain mixed with alfalfa pellets that are softened. I bring it in and let it soak. I had some cut flowers that I was going to toss out. 
Instead, I decorated his meal.

Yeah. Hubby rolled his eyes and shook his head. Why not though? Fred was/is probably the only reason we met each other so many years ago. I admired the little mule and recalled the man telling me his name was Fred.

I didn't recall the cowboy dude's name for most of the week we rode together. But I recalled the awesome little tough mule he rode.

Fred was at our wedding. He was best mule.

The farrier was to show up at noon and I got Rich up from his nap so he could visit with them while I got out ol' Fred and cleaned him up.

The father son farrier team has been with us since 2017. They always make the appointment with us so that they can spend extra time visiting with Rich. They also come out once in a great while during the months they aren't so busy to sit and chew that fat with Rich.

I couldn't catch Rich's old mule Mica later on, so I left a pen open and got our little pony for a trim. Rich walked out and told me he'd go catch her. He was annoyed that I didn't run around the pasture to chase her down.

As I predicted, the old mule walked right into the catch pen as soon as I was busy with something else and she waited until Rich walked in and haltered her. He was quick to point out that HE caught her.

We all watched with our mouths wide open in amazement. 

I murmured something to the affect that I thought all the exercise he was doing during his PT appointments were obviously paying off well. Chalk one up for exercise!

I took over for him after the Danny finished her first hoof so he could sit down on a stool they'd put in the truck just for Rich. [What thoughtful people they are!]

The guys finished up and then stayed to visit. 

I got a text from Daryl the hay guy who said he would be by in the late afternoon with our winter hay. Daryl is a kind soul. Rich used to go get the hay from Daryl, but since his stroke, he doesn't drive and we never have to wonder too much where we will get hay from. Yes, it costs more to have it delivered, however, it gives me peace of mind to know I can depend on him as a source each year.

Daryl and Rich visited. Rich complained about the price of hay. Daryl reminded him of how much he loved watching his mules and was that worth the price? 

There was a discussion about brush hogging the pasture. Daryl pointed out that he could probably have the pasture brush hogged twice a year for about 15 years for the price of the one he'd pay for his skid steer.

Rich moved the bales into the shed, never missing a beat and had them all stacked up neatly for me to feed out this coming year.

Charlie and I took down a temporary fence that we'd put up for the summer near all the old 'stuff' parked in the weeds.

With all that done, Rich said he was exhausted.

He had to be! All day he had to be sociable!

It was amazing, he laughed, he told jokes, he caught a mule. He wrangled the skid steer and 20 huge square bales. 

All in a day's work.

Rain! Heat ...Stuck inside.

Maybe my heart is in creativity in all shapes and forms.

I am not talented in drawing or painting. However I can make excellent stick figures and cartoonish figures.

Cartoon I did for Mules and More Magazine years ago. See? I can draw a line!

I read some articles debating the use of AI Art and some other articles which discussed the positive uses for AI in doing graphic art and commercial art. 

I've experimented so far with two AI generators. NightCafe and wombo. Both are free, both can be done from your computer or your smartphone. 

These are the simple AI art things a person can do.

I like to delve even further into the realm of 'interesting-ness'. I admit. It can be ho-hum and sort of pretty in a strange way. But since I was stuck with evading the heat and humidity, I thought I'd dabble in another form of abstract art. 

I went on a Horse kick and got this:

I mean most of this looks pretty and abstract. So I decided to get creative.

I combined two 'creations' from a photo of my favorite box elder tree in the winter.

I typed in Tree Ents for one image and Tree Ents with cottages for the second image using the above tree as a base image.

I combined the two to create my own mystical Tree Cottage.

It looks like some strange house straight out of a story like the Hobbit.

I can see where an AI application like this could be used to create a book cover, an album cover, or even perhaps a poster. [Each of the sites do offer prints for a pretty nice price and offer a way to sell your artwork as an NFT.] 

I could see this as a book cover!

I really wanted to create something with a horse in it so I went over to Nightcafe and started experimenting.

This looked like freaky flying horses with red farts.

It was not something I wished to work with. The one below looked vaguely like Wrath Horses stuck in a Swamp of Sorrow. 

The one below involved the words: Horses, clouds, angels, wings, 

...and something strangely creepy, but it held my attention with a ... 

This IS It!

I wanted something more dark and strange.

This was the original.

Here is the final edit.

I stopped right here because this exemplified what I thought was the definition of 

a

Nightmare.

Okay, this is not for everyone at all. I mean it has a certain scary awful dystopian feel to it. It is dark and a bit frightening.

I like scary movies though and this really resonated with me. It was all created with just words and then run through Artificial Intelligence and a Neural Network.

Let's end on some happy and cheery doodles.

Steam Punk Flowers and Clouds

What the dashboard of creation looks like:

Tropical Beach Cheerful Lifeforms...
I don't see the life forms, but at least it is cheerful and in the rather fantastical and weird style of Kincaid paintings. The colors are pretty, but I don't see any beach!